[2.1] TickleAndBlast - The Tendril-Shatter-Scion

TickleAndBlast - The Tendril-Shatter-Scion



1. Short Description

This build is inspired by Hegemony's Scion build for 1.3, where Lightning Tendrils with huge AOE increase were used in combination with a high crit chance and cold damage to trigger massive Herald of Ice explosions. Due to the changes of freeze mechanics in 2.0, simply an update to the passive tree would not do the trick, so I worked out a concept for 2.x versions.

In order to freeze and shatter mobs in 2.0 and onwards, the actual amount of cold damage determines whether mobs will freeze or not. (Before any amount of cold damage + a critical strike would guarantee a freeze). To achieve this with Lightning Tendrils, the unique ring "Call of the Brotherhood" is used, which converts 50% of lightning damage to cold damage. This will be enough to freeze most enemies even in high level maps.

I've developed this concept in 2.0 during the Darkshrine Event, hoping that the 2.1 passive tree changes would not effect this build drastically. Some nerfs around the Scion starting area (including the AOE nodes) and the "rework" of the Shadow area made me doubt a lot. BUT: The overall damage increase that many spells (including Lightning Tendrils) recieved from the update made up for this. In fact, the talismans are an addition that works quite nicely with this build, in general the whole concept feels to be turning out even better than in 2.0.

2. Pro and Contra

Pro:
-Superfast map clear speed
-Incredible fun to play
-fairly cheap to get started, good scalability with more currency

Contra:
-Not exactly the #1 Boss Slayer Build
-Not the tankiest build overall, not hardcore-viable
-Should be 85+ to draw the full benfit from passive tree

Easy to play / Beginner friendly?
- It's definitely not an absolute beginner Build, you should have basic knowledge on enemies and their skills, character positioning and the ability to judge potential threats. You'll learn a lot of this by playing, and if you're a really good and experienced player you can push this build definitely further than me.

- Also this isn't exactly the cheapest build of all, since it requires a Call of the Brotherhood (currently ~1EX). But let me get this clear: If you know what items to pick up and trade, you're gonna make a decent amount of currency. Just keep your shop / aqcuisition updated and the chaos will come in easily.

- Atziri viable? Probably. I'm testing that soon. The thing is, I've never encountered Atziri before with any build, so I am totally unexperienced with all the fight mechanics. However, I managed to pass the Vaal Oversouls without dying and even managed to kill the Trio on my second try. I guess experienced Atziri hunters can push this build way further and bring her down.

3. Build Mechanics:

Offensive Mechanics:
This Scion uses three main skills to achieve a super fast pace and a massive map clear speed:
- Lightning Tendrils which deal massive cold damage, high critical strike chance, and a huge AOE increase to trigger huge Herald of Ice explosions
- Fire Trap for mobile DPS and additional single target attacks
- Ball Lightning, GMP, Assassin's Mark curse setup in order to curse half the map with one click

Defensive Mechanics:
Here we got a little bit of a weak point in this build, any suggestions for improvements are welcome:
- Fairly high life pool, around 4500 to 5000, around 1500 ES, no Evasion, no Armor
- Mind over Matter (without EB!) to reduce physical damage. Aim for around 700 mana unreserved, 100+ regen/s
- Arctic Armor to reduce physical (and fire) damage even more
- Granite and Jade Flasks

4. Gem Setup

Body Armor
5 Link: Lightning Tendrils - Faster Casting - Cold Penetration - Increased Area of Effect - Increased Critical Damage
6 Link: Lightning Tendrils - Faster Casting - Cold Penetration - Increased Area of Effect - Increased Critical Damage - Empower / Increased Critical Strikes

Faster Casting vs. Spell Echo: Lightning Tendrils is a channeling spell, so for the time you cast it, you're unable to move or evade attacks. Though Spell Echo results in quite more Tooltip DPS, it nearly doubles the time you're stuck. The choice is up to you of course.

Increased Citical Damage vs. Increased Critical Strikes: To be honest: we're at around 60% chance to deal a critical strike while using ICD (Assassin's Mark not regarded here), which is quite enough. ICS would raise this up to 72-73%, but the bonus you'll get from the crit multiplier is definitely more valuable.

Empower: In a 6 Link Setup you could as well use ICD and ICS. Or you swap ICS with Empower, which should increase the base damage of lightning tendrils drastically. I can't confirm this yet cause I don't have a 6 Link and my Empower gem is still too low, but my calculations regarding this are definitely making me smile. Also: You get a red socket to eventually use Life Leech / LGOH for reflect maps.

Also carry Conc Effect with you, in case you want to switch it with Increased AOE for boss fights or situations, where you want to double your dps temporarily.

Minmaxing this setup:
Vaal your Gems of course: Go for 21/20 Tendrils, Cold Pen, Incr. Aoe, Incr. Crit Dmg and go for 20/23 on Faster Casting.


Helmet
Fire Trap - Concentrated Effect - Fire Penetration - Controlled Destruction

Pretty obvious, however I wanted to test Controlled Destruction in this Setup. Works fairly nice, however you could switch it with other gems: Increased AOE, Increased Burning Damage, maybe even Crit Gems


Weapon
Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify

Of course only use this when using a Divinarius or another rare Dagger. Flame Dash would be the alternative right here.


Gloves
Lightning Ball - Curse on Hit - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Assassins Mark

I'm in love with this Setup basically since GGG buffed Curse on Hit to a 100% chance. But in this Setup it really works quite lovely and imho better than Heralds Autocasting for two reasons: 1. You're cursing a bigger area than just your screen, which is great cause the Herald's Explosions will reach out this far also. 2. You eventually shock and freeze/chill mobs even before you actually attack them with Lightning Tendrils. In some cases, you even don't need Lightning Tendrils.


Shield
Herald of Ice - Increased Area of Effect - Clarity (around lvl 12-15)

If you want to link Incr. AOE to HoI is up to you. You could instead use any other Gem that would add value to this setup: Vaal Lightning Strike, Enduring Cry, etc.


Boots
Cast when Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Arctic Armor - Summon Chaos Golem

AA and your Golem are not triggered by CwDT. Optionally place your Golem gem in your Shield (instead of Incr. AOE) and add Warlord's Mark to this Setup. I haven't tested this yet.

5. Items:

Weapon:
- Divinarius kills it! High Crit, Increased Spell Damage and Increased Area of Effect. Plus you're able to use Whirling Blades.
- Dagger / Wand / Scepter with Spell Damage, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Faster Casting

Shield:
- Defensive Option: High ES, Life, Mana, Mana Regeneration, Resistances
- Offensive Option: Spell Damage, Crit Chance, Life, ES, Resistances

Body Armor:
- Carcass Jack: ES, a little Evasion, Life, Resistances, Area Of Effect, Area Damage, Extra Gore <3
- Rare ES or ES/EVA Chest Piece, 200+ES, Life, Mana, Resistances, Dexterity

Helmet:
- Rare Circlet with high ES, Life, Resistances, Dexterity

Boots:
- Rare Boots with Life, Mana, Resistances. Movement speed is nice, but due to Whirling Blades not required.
- The Blood Dance: Dexterity, Movement Speed, Auto Frenzy-Charges. I've used those in 2.0, but I had trouble getting my resistances capped. Also those are incredible expensive in Talisman League.

Gloves:
- Rare Gloves with ES, Life, Mana, Resistances.
- Voidbringer, Maligaro's or Facebreaker are offensive options with massive damage boost, but the lack of life and resistances will hurt a lot.

Amulet:
- Splitnewt, Lone Antler or Deep One Talismans are a great choice if you get a decent roll. Look for life, Resistances, Crit, Spell Damage, Mana Regeneration.

Ring 1:
- Call of The Brotherhood: No Exception! Otherwise you are not getting enough cold damage

Ring 2:
Rare Cobalt / TwoStone / Diamond Ring with Life, Resistances, Mana, Mana Regeneration, Dexterity

Flasks:
2x Instant Heal with Bleed Removal / Freeze Removal
1x Surgeon's Jade Flask of Reflexes
1x Surgeon'S Granite Flask of Resistances
1x Either a quicksilver Flask (not needed when excessivly using Whirling Blades) or situational Flasks (Ruby / Topaz / Atziri's / Taste of Hate)

Why do you always read "Dexterity"? Well, the problem is that we are starting out with 20 Dex and only get 30 Dex from the Passive Tree. In order to get our Dex Gems to max level we need 114 Dex. I figured it more valuable to craft Dexterity onto items instead of using skill Points for nodes like Agility/Alacrity. Again, the choice is up to you and highly depending on the gear you have.

6. Passive Tree: (Level 88)


Passive Tree Explanation:

Mind Over Matter without Eldritch Battery and Zealot's Oath? Yes, because there is no need for this build to reserve 100% Mana. You could potentially use another Herald or a damage aura like Anger, but I doubt that would be worth the 4 Skill Points to get EB/ZO. This would probably work, however you'd then respec all mana / mana regen nodes and spend points on more ES nodes. I tried this two times and different stages on my actual build and ended up doing side quests for respec points.

Fire, Lightning and Frost Walker? Really? Yes, but mostly for the resistances. If you can cap your resistances by gear / jewels, feel free to respec those.

Only two Jewel Slots? Yes, but mainly because I've never really gotten into this whole jewel thing. If you feel the need to use more sockets, there are some quite easily accessible slots in the tree.

The full Scion Life Wheel? Yes, cause I am trying to make this build not as squishy like the one I had in 2.0. In general, this Build is doing quite decent damage so that at a certain point life nodes are getting more beneficial than elemental damage nodes.

7. Leveling

You've got two options:
- You'll try to hardcore level this build using Lightning Tendrils with Added Cold Damage and Herald of Ice. This is the way I did it and if you want to end up with 200+ deahts by the time you reach Level 80, this is the way to go!
- You'll level with something different like Flame Totem (uhh, creative!) until you obtain and use a Call Of the Brotherhood and decent damage scaling gear.

8. My Current Gear


9. Stats:



9. Possible Improvements
I assume that there are still a lot of possibilities to improve this build. As I continue to play it and discuss with you guys, hopefully we're gonna fill in some points here

10. Videos
Once I'll get a better graphics card I'll record a couple of map videos and probably a full build guide.

Nice build! Very awesome to see LT getting some spotlight...I thought I was only person out there with a LT Scion. Your build is very different than mine, but very cool idea to use Call of the Brotherhood, freeze and crit.

How did the Atziri fight go?

What are the bandit rewards?

Hello, i know we have new patch but here is almost my build so maybe someone tell me why i have so low dps on this skill (5,3k ES and 3,3k dps)

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAAAAAPuBx4IZw18DkgOXBBYES0RLxFQEZYYPBhWGGoabBslG_Ec3B1PHb4d2R_HKPorCit4LJwspi0fLYstqDOHNbk3gz8nQ1RFfklRSbFKyEuuTLNUR1ZIV8lYB1ltWlJca13yX2pfmGr6bRl2EXgve8N713yDfOV-x3_GgseESIhCjDaPGo9Gj_qQ1pMnkzqVIJUum12boZ2unsSio6a-puunCKcrqJq31riTvSe-gMHFwfPDbc8y0B_Q0NfP2CTZW9tZ5YvpAuvu74jv6_DV8pf0cffB99f5N_no?accountName=Satrew&characterName=MikadoPikantny

its my second character and i wanna try es build but ths dmg... is so low ;x
my items:

its all about weapon only?